NATION/IWO RLD -
U.N.: Iraq may
have mistreated
some prisoners
The Michigan Daily - Thursday, January 15. 1998
arribean
region aces
high AIDS rate
Los Angeles Times biological w
WASHINGTON -- U.N. weapons Butler said.
inspectors this week investigated alle- looked for t
gations that Iraq conducted germ war- n't find the
fare experiments on political prisoners for all of t
but found that records covering the sus- there."
pected time period had been removed, Butler sa
the chief arms inspector said yesterday. tinue trying
Iraq dismissed reports of prison tests biological
5 "a sheer lie." made by ex
Richard Butler, head of the special - are true
U.N. commission charged with elimi- In Washi
nating Iraq's weapons of mass destruc- said the U
tion, said in a television interview that structed de
the prison inspection was conducted pointed to g
Monday by members of the U.N. team prison but
headed by American Scott Ritter, evidence.
although Ritter was not present. President
Later in the day Monday, Iraqi government
President Saddam Hussein's regime mation that
j1allenged the United States and the prisoners. [
nited Nations by announcing that it White Hou
would ban Ritter's team from carrying he believes
out its assignment. Ritter and his col- on, we shoo
leagues were blocked yesterday for a to insist that
second day. ... I would
Although Iraq originally accused (the Iraqis);
Ritter of being a spy, and complained chemical an
that his team was overloaded with Butler di
Americans and Britons, yesterday Iraqi might have
officials cited the prison inspection as prison recor
the sort of activities they were trying to on ABC-
op. America," h
"I did authorize an inspection ... to a dence that
prison in order to look at the documen- inspectors.
tary record of the possible testing of a "We've b
Recession cli
Los Angeles Times
SEOUL, South Korea-- When it comes to self-sac-=
Mice, no detail is too small for the earnest citizens of
this newly troubled country.
Wedding halls have stopped serving the tradi-
tional wedding repast between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.
on the grounds that most guests, already full from
lunch, were wasting the food. Apartment dwellers
are stopping their elevators on alternate floors to
save electricity. Average folks have tossed more
than $135 million in gold trinkets into the nation-
al hat as a way to stoke foreign reserves.
Not that this industriousness is always carried out
th good cheer. The nation is in serious trouble, and
personal dreams have been shattered. Thus the hik-
eapons agent on prisoners,"
"When they got there, they
those documents. They did-
em because the documents
he relevant period weren't
id his commission will con-
to determine if charges of
arms testing - originally
iled Iraqi opposition leaders
or false.
ngton, intelligence sources
.N. inspectors had recon-
leted computer files that
germ war experiments at the
did not provide conclusive
Clinton later said the U.S.
has no independent confir-
Iraq is experimenting on
But he told reporters at the
se: "If Mr. Butler says that
that he's got enough to go
uld view it seriously enough
t the inspections go forward.
remind you that in 1995,
admitted to having stocks of
id biological weapons."
id not speculate about what
happened to the missing
ds, but in the same interview
TV's "Good Morning
e said there is growing evi-
Iraq is spying on the U.N.
been very concerned at the
AP PHOTO
Iraqi Deputy Premier Tariq Ariz holds evidence that Iraq has no more weapons of
mass destruction during a press conference in Baghdad yesterday.
The Wshlington Post
NASSA, Bahamas -- The tropi-
cal tranquillity of this tourist par-
adise, with its pristine beaches,
soothing calypso and quaint gingzer-
bread houses, belies the severity of a
deadly scourge: AIDS.
Thirteen years after the Bahamas
reported its first case. the country is
grappling with one of the highest
AIDS rates in tne world, an epidem-
ic that has become the foremost
cause of death for men and women
betwveen the ages of 20 and 44.
"What this means is that many
people are getting infected as teen-
agers ... and unless we stem this dis-
ease, there will be severe socioeco-
nomic impacts," said M. Perrti
Gomez, a physician who is director
of the Bahamas' national AIDS pro-
gram.
"You could deplete your work
force prematurely, see the ioss of
bread winners in families and put an
increasingly heavy burden on the
state."
Throughout the Caribbean, coun-
tries like the Bahamas are con-
fronting an AIDS epidemic that has
left this region of 36 million people
with the world's highest incidence
rate of the disease after sub-Saharan
A frica.
Figures compiled by the U.N.
AIDS Program show that at least
310,000 people in the Caribbean
have AIDS or HIV, the virus that
causes the disease. and that the
prevalence rate among adults is
nearly 2 percent.
The numbers for sub-Saharan
Africa, an area south of the Sahara
Desert with a total population of 600
million people, are dramatically
higher.
Nearly 21 million people there
have been recorded as living with
the human immunodeficiency virus
(HIV ), and 7.4 preeit ol the adult
population is infected
In the U nited Staics and C anada
there are an estimated 900 i(1 , peo-
ple living i with AIDS or IV.
Overall, 0.0 percent of the adults in
North America have been diagtcnoscd
as carrying IIIV.
What is alarmion about the
Caribbeai is that while the annual
number of AIDS cases has been
dropping in North America during
the last several years and rates in
Latin America have leveled off, the
figures in this region have been
increasing sharply.
In 1993, for example, the number
of new cases jumbped 1by13.5 percent
from the prexvious ear, then
increased 19.2 percent in 1994 and
by 22.5 percent in 1995, according
to the Caribbean Epidemiology
Center in Trinidad, which tracks
public-health trends in 21 Caribbean
nations.
"Slowly but steadily, the pandern-
ic is taking hold of communities
rendered doubly vulnerable due to
their socioeconomic d isadvtantage
and lack of information,, said a
report on the Caribbean prepared by
three leading health organizations
and presented at the XI linternational
Conference on AI DS in Vancouver
in I 996. "M i ration. hoth between
countries and from rural to urban
areas, contributes to the continued
spread of HIV AIDS and creates
additional challenges to preven-
Health officials contend that the
epidemic in the (aribbean has wors-
ened as a result of political and
social factors such as poverty, loW
levels of education and a pervasive
intolerance of homosexuality that
has translated into a lack of will at
the upper echelons of some govern-
ments to combat A IDS vgorously.
number of instances in recent times at
which we've shown up at a site that we
have to inspect to discover evidence that
Iraq probably knew we were comiing
there and maybe even what we werc
going to look at," le said. "So, that of,
course has raised in our miiinds the qucs-
tion of whether they're Iistening to us or
in some way gettinig advance informa-
tion on What we do."
At the U nited Nations, the Security
Council issued a statement calliig oii
Iraq to stop interfering with L. N.
inspections. Although it did not specify
a penIalty for continued defiance by
Iraq. U.S. Ambassador to the United
NItions Bill Richardson called it "a
strong statement.
adlenges
ing trails at nearby Pukansan
become a sort of hide-out fo
businessmen. Too embarrassed
the bad news, the men continue
each morning dressed in work a
mountains instead of their offic
The human toll can also b
increase in crimes such as the
ping and suicide, according h
By one count, business exe
themselves at a rate of one
accused of kidnapping and b
owed him nearly S28,000.
But, confronted by their wor
modern times, South Koreans at
S. Korean lifestyle
National Park have ation and darkened prospects with a survival instinct
r newly unemployed and patriotic fervor reminiscent of World War 11
to tell their families Ancrica.
to leave their homes Exhorted by President-elect Kim Dae Jung, the
attire but head for the long7time dissident who inherited the daunting task of
es. resurrecttinc his nations economy and psyche,
be measured by the Koreans are rediscoveringi. the intangibles that
ft, burglary, kidnap- throughout history have enabled them to survive and
o local newspapers. thrive encircled by China and Japan_- and, in the past
cutives are killing three decades, to build their desperately poor country
a day. A man is into the world's I th-larcest economy.
eatitog a debtor Who "Koreans have a sense that there is no one else they
can rely on but themIIselvesi said Luii Mee Kim, an
st economic crisis in associate professor at Ewha Womans University in
e facing their humili- Seoul.
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PATRICE GAINES
2 P.M.
Monday, January 19, 1998
Michigan Union Ballroom
Washington Post reporter and author Patrice Gaines
(Laughing in the Dark: From Colored Girl to Woman of
Color - A Journey from Prison to Power) will speak at
2 p.m. Monday, January 19 in the Michigan Union
Ballroom in conjunction with the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., Symposium.
In her autobiography, she gives her account of a
life of learning, living, and surviving as an African
American woman who fell from the comfort of
growing up in a military family to the hard life
of a junkie with a prison record.
Gaines will address "Why We Can't Wait" to address
and solve the social problems that threaten society.
SPONSORED BY:
The School of Information
The University Library
The InformationTechnology Division
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